Public Statements

Chambliss: We Cannot Keep Letting Dangerous Detainees Go Free

Statement

Today, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, questioned top U.S. intelligence officials on the current administration's proposed transfer of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, and called for the declassification of the intelligence assessments on these detainees so that there could be an open debate about the wisdom of this transfer before it takes place.

"Press reports have outlined the current administration's plans to trade prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay to the Taliban as a "confidence building measure." It appears from these reports that in exchange for transferring detainees who had been determined to be "too dangerous to transfer" by the Administration's own Guantanamo Review Task Force, we get little to nothing in return," said Chambliss. "Apparently, the Taliban will not have to stop fighting our troops and won't even have to stop bombing them with IEDs. I have also heard nothing from the intelligence community that suggests that the assessments on the threat posed by these detainees have changed. I want to state publicly, as strongly as I can, that we should not transfer these detainees from Guantanamo. Moreover, I believe the intelligence community should declassify the intelligence assessments on these detainees so that we can have a full and open debate about the wisdom of this transfer before it takes place.

Chairwoman Diane Feinstein, (D-Calif.) and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) held the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's annual open hearing on Worldwide Threats today. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director David Petraeus, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Ronald Burgess, National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen , Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Philip Goldberg, and Homeland Security Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Caryn Wagner answered questions from the committee on public threats that face the nation.